The Bindunuwewa Massacre or Bindunuwewa Prison Massacre took place on October 24, 2000 at a detention center of Bindunuwewa, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, resulting in the deaths of 26 minority

Minority group

A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...

 Tamil political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

s by a mob of majority Sinhalese

Sinhalese people

The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group,forming the majority of Sri Lanka,constituting 74% of the Sri Lankan population.They number approximately 15 million worldwide.The Sinhalese identity is based on language, heritage and religion. The Sinhalese speak Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language and the...

.

Camp

The low-security detention center was established to house former LTTE cadres. Of the 26 killed, 2 were under the age of 21 and the rest were between 21 and 30.

The massacre

On October 24, 2000, a mob of a few hundred Sinhalese villagers armed with knives, rods and torches stormed the detention center while the inmates were sleeping. The Sri Lankan Army

Sri Lankan Army

The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and is responsible for land-based military and humanitarian operations. Established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, it was renamed when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972...

 detachment that was posted there had been withdrawn the previous day, for unknown reasons.

Once the massacre

Massacre

A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...

 started, the posted police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 personnel refused to intervene to stop it.

Government response

Initially, the government responded by saying that the detainees had rioted and that the massacre was an outcome of an attempt to control the rioting. Then it was claimed that the police were unable to protect the detainees in the face of superior mob force. Eventually, the government charged a few police officers with a crime. Most were initially convicted of murder, only to be released by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court in 2006.

Theories

A number of theories have been postulated to explain the massacre:

• It was organized by local Sinhala nationalist political activists with the convenience of Sri Lankan Army and police personnel.
• It was a reaction by the local villagers who resented the detention center in their neighborhood.
• It was organized by the military establishment to thwart an attempt by the detainees to go on hunger strike in the subsequent days to protest their detention.

See also

• List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces
• List of attacks attributed to the LTTE
• List of massacres in Sri Lanka